The One Thing Review

The One Thing

Marci Lyn Curtis

Disney-Hyperion

September 8, 2015

3/5

I can't tell you how badly I wanted to LOVE this book. Even now looking at Goodreads, I see so many perfect ratings and such positive reviews. On one hand, I do agree with a lot of what is being said, but I can't completely push aside the issues that I had with the book either. I think it could have used a lot of more character growth and plot development, among other things. The big reason for reading this is that the characters are all larger than life and spilling with personality. I really enjoyed that part of it, particularly Ben and Maggie (more about them later) but in the end that just wasn't enough to make me forget the questionable sides of the book.

Maggie Sanders lost her ability to see six months ago due to a nasty illness. Her life has totally changed since then. She no longer can play soccer, a sport that she loved, and she’s also lost all of her friends. On top of all that, she's forced to meet with her new probation officer because of a prank that her school didn't think was so funny. She’s spent the majority of her time listening to her new favorite band. A strange thing happens to Maggie when she meets a ten-year-old boy named Ben who she can actually see and she can also see things around him. She strikes up a genuine friendship with the boy and then happens to discover that his older brother is the lead singer of her favorite band. What follows is an adventure as Maggie discovers the one thing that is her “thing.” This is something that Ben brings up to her and he means the one thing that you love and that makes you happier than anything else. This is an interesting concept that comes up repeatedly in the book.

As I mentioned earlier, Maggie is the total highlight of the book for me. She’s filled with a hilarious amount of sass and sarcasm. She doesn't take crap from anyone and I just love that. She’s just a likable narrator and she’ll have you laughing out loud more than once while you read this story. I also really loved Ben, the ten-year-old that Maggie can see. This kid is seriously mature for his age and I love all the random and awesome topics that he brings up to Maggie. It’s hard to describe it here, but take my word for it that there are plenty of humorous moments from him. To balance the humor out, of course there are more than your fair share of sad and heartbreaking moments as well. Ben's brother Mason, who plays an important role in the book, was a complicated character for me. He automatically is suspicious of Maggie for wanting to hangout with his little brother. He thinks that she is faking her blindness because she's a major fangirl of his band. (The first time he meets her she's wearing his band's T-Shirt) I just felt like Mason was a jerk for no reason and that (spoiler alert) the relationship between Mason and Maggie didn't develop enough. They hardly talk in the book yet we are expect to believe the romance between them? That's just not realistic to me personally.

I’m not going to launch into serious details, but another huge problem I had with the book was the reason behind why Maggie can see Ben. I just feel like it could have been handled in a more realistic way. I mean, obviously every scenario involving this brief moment of being able to see is going to involve fiction, but I just had a hard time understanding it. Anyway, this is still a book filled with beautiful and memorable characters with a fairly unique and important story that young adult contemporary fans will likely love.